Distraction
by Towa-no-Yami
Summary: "John is gone and Sherlock falls into one of his 'dark moods'. He needs a distraction, but he can't have either of the things that might possibly work." Bad summary, because I honestly don't know how to surmise it. Established Johnlock, slash. T for mentions of drug-use.


_**A/N:**__Once again, I have no idea where this came from. I was bored of reading and knew I wanted to write instead, but all of the ideas that I'd had shot out of my head as soon as I opened word and I couldn't catch them fast enough. So, I had to improvise. I just started writing and this is what happened! It's actually a bit like one of the ideas that I did have, but not exactly. I don't even know what to class it as... I suppose it kind of an introspective piece... but, I don't know. Please give it a chance, though and I'd love to know what you think. Also, hasn't been beta-ed (none of my stuff every is) and I can be a lousy proof-reader, so please point any mistakes. Thanks!_

_**Disclaimer:**__ I do not own _Sherlock_ or any of its characters and receive no profit from this story. All credit goes to Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss and to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the original characters._

The phosphorent glow of a streetlamp softly filtered through the thin curtains that were drawn crudely across the front windows of 221-B Baker Street, lending a vague, bluish hue to all that it touched and casting long, shifting shadows that gently caressed the walls and floor. Midnight had long since passed, silent but for the far-off chimes of Big Ben, barely audible, but undeniably there, when one deigned to listen for them and with little else to do, Sherlock had listened. He had been listening all day, all evening and into the night, but when the bell tolled twelve, he had given up counting the chimes.

It was a weeknight (Sherlock knew not what day it was, but he had deduced that much, at least) and there was little other than residential buildings in the area surrounding Baker Street, so traffic, both of people and automobiles, had been distinctly sparse since night had set in, allowing sound to travel much farther than it was usually able. The tolls, though quiet, seemed to reverberate with as much force amid the walls of 221-B as they would in the clock tower itself, sending their vibrations through the walls and furniture and causing Sherlock's teeth to chatter uncomfortably as he lay, unmoving, on the sofa, his navy blue dressing gown draped protectively around his thin frame.

Occasionally, throughout the day, he had heard chatter on the street below, indistinct voices that screamed obnoxiously loud inside the confines of his mind, a deafening cacophony of dull, uninteresting discussions that seemed so vital to those who partook that Sherlock had to muster all of his apathy not to scoff at the self-important notions of _ordinary_ people. Other times, he had heard Mrs Hudson puttering around in her ground-floor flat, her slippered feet somehow crashing heavily against the thickly carpeted floors. The unbearable clinking of china and cutlery as she prepared cups of tea or meals was harsh against the silence that enveloped Sherlock and her intermittent, high-pitched humming grated on his nerves like nails being raked down a chalkboard.

The detective had not moved for at least sixteen hours and he was vaguely aware that the pain he had been feeling in his joints was starting to become a numbness, spreading from the tips of his extremities towards his core. He welcomed the sensation, the opportunity to just _not feel_. He wished it would take his mind as well, but he knew of only one thing that could accomplish such a feat, only one thing that could silence the wailing beast inside his head, and that was _not_ an option, despite how his mind screamed for it, ached for it, clawed at the inner surface of his skull to get his attention and tell him, calmly inform him, that he _needed_ it.

He inhaled slowly, feeling the air filling him and holding that one breath deep within himself, letting it fill spaces that felt empty and eek into every nook and cranny of his twisted, crooked heart. When he listened like this, he could almost swear that he could hear _everything_ that was occurring within his body. His heartbeat was a given; he could both hear and feel it tapping a slow, steady rhythm against his sternum, its unassuming constancy such a juxtaposition to the chaos of his mind, but he could also hear the blood that accompanied it, the great, overwhelming _whoosh_ of blood that closely followed every period of systole, both atrial and ventricular having been completed before the surge was evident. It deafened him, when he listened to it, taking away all other sensory input (sight, smell, taste, touch) leaving him dumb and blind to anything but that unmistakable, all-encompassing rush of blood and for a few moments, it was almost a relief. But when his thoughts returned, even that internal noise became too much; the basic sounds of his own body crashed mercilessly against his fragile mind and he exhaled heavily, releasing the breath in a gush of air and quickly sucking in a few breaths in rapid succession. Clearly the calm had lasted longer than usual. He wasn't normally so breathless, so starved of oxygen, when he recommenced his normal respiratory pattern.

To others, there would be have been silence, then, but Sherlock knew better. Just as people saw without observing, they were also prone to listening without hearing. Sherlock heard every creak and groan as the house 'settled'; He heard the water dripping a constant beat from the slightly leaky tap in the bathroom upstairs; He heard the pipes banging and the faint buzzing of the bluebottle that lay dying on the windowsill in the kitchen, its gossamer wings fluttering desperately as it struggled through its death-throes. _'Stupid,'_ Sherlock though uninterestedly, _'Why struggle against the inevitable?'_

Sherlock didn't know how long it had been since he had finished his last case, since John had received a call from his distraught sister, packed an overnight bag and rushed out of the flat, but he was certain that it had been at least three days. The first he remembered quite clearly. Though John's sudden departure had put somewhat of a dampener on his mood, he had maintained his post-case high long enough to conduct his long-awaited experiment into methods of determining the time of death of bodies that had been kept in unusual conditions, such as those that had been frozen. However, he had found himself unable to make any concrete conclusions without actual test subjects and texting Molly had been entirely fruitless, only gaining him an apology and a promise to call when any suitable specimens came in. After that, the time seemed to blur and merge, but the detective was sure he could remember the sun setting at least twice before this night, so he had settled on three days as a rough estimate of how long he had been alone in the flat.

It is not that he was angry with John for leaving, not in the slightest. In fact, John's caring nature, the part of him that was so willing to drop everything in his own life for somebody else, the part of him that was everything that Sherlock, himself, wasn't, was a largely contributing factor in the way that John had endeared himself unto Sherlock. He couldn't bring himself to begrudge John for leaving him for his sister, who, he imagined, must currently be struggling through a crisis with her alcoholism, but he wished John would come home. John was his now and he didn't like to share and the more he grew accustomed to having John in his life, to granting him access to every facet of his being, the harder he found it to function without him. He struggled, now, to remember a time before John. He knew, _knew_, that it couldn't have always been like this, that he had lived his life, day in and day out, without needing a thing from anyone except the occasional case from Lestrade, but that life was unfathomable to him now. Sherlock had been half a man, nothing but a mind, an intellect, though, undeniably, an impressive one. When he told Moriarty the he 'had been reliably informed' that he didn't have a heart, he was speaking the truth, for it was a fact that he had long since determined. Nevertheless, slowly but surely, John had changed that truth; Where once it was carved in stone, John had erased it with a swipe of his hand, brushing it away like sand caught it the wind and leaving it to be carried to the four corners of the earth.

John was, as trite and clichéd as it sounded, Sherlock's other half. Like a piece of a jigsaw, he fitted neatly against Sherlock, his own cracked and tarnished heart slotting perfectly into Sherlock's chest, filling the gaping void that had been there for as long as he could remember. The war had broken John, had cracked him in two and given him these rough edges, but to Sherlock, it had made him perfect. His military stance, so like parade rest in its stiff propriety, his psychosomatic limp, the harsh edge to those otherwise soft blue eyes had drawn Sherlock in at first glance, had created a magnetic pull that he couldn't, nor did he want to, resist. And when John shot Hope, taking a life to save a virtual stranger and doing so with an undeniably steady hand (it had to have been steady, there was no cracking around the edges of the hole that the bullet had made in the window and when you factored in the distance between the two buildings and the accuracy of the shot), he became a wonderful enigma, just as likely, in those early days, to occupy his mind as that of the elusive 'Moriarty'.

It had taken time, a lot of time, for the two to realise just what they had become to each other. The change from two parts to one whole had been almost immediate, but it had felt so natural, so _right_, that neither had noticed. It was only after that night at the pool, when things suddenly felt too real, when the danger was too immediate, when they came so close to losing what they didn't know they had, that things started to change, gradual, small changes, the first, tentative steps into territory unknown to both men. John was a soldier, he knew that you never went into a situation without assessing it thoroughly first, that you never took a risk when it came to foreign soil, and though Sherlock was usually much more haphazard than the doctor, even he required careful deliberation to reconcile his feelings with his mind.

But when the final leap had been taken, there was no longer any doubt in either man's mind, no thoughts of turning back. Like everything else, the new stage in their relationship, from friendship to something more, simply fitted.

Sherlock reached into the deep pocket of his robe and pulled out his phone, his joints protesting loudly against the movement as the pleasant numbness slipped away and was replaced with stiff agony. He scrolled through his contacts, though admittedly they were few, and stopped at John's name, hesitating slightly before pressing the call button. He knew that John needed to be with his sister and he knew that ringing might worry him, but for all that John had changed Sherlock, he was still, in essence, a selfish creature and right now, with the world spinning madly around him and his thoughts running a mile a minute, he wanted nothing more than to have John with him, to have John distract him in the way that only he, and the seven percent solution, had ever managed.

"Hello?" John answered after the sixth ring. His voice came through tinny, but it was undeniably muffled and scratchy. _'He was sleeping, then.'_ Sherlock thought, having forgotten that it was some time in the early hours of the morning.

"Sherlock? Are you there?" He asked, sounding more alert as his voice was laced with concern. "Sherlock?" He repeated again. "Look, I think we've got a dodgy connection or something. I can't hear a word you're saying. I'll call you back, okay?" He paused, waiting for an answer, but still Sherlock remained silent. "Alright. I'm hanging up now, Sherlock." He was using that tone of voice that he usually used in 'delicate' situations, similar to his 'doctor voice' but more like he was talking to a child. "Okay. I'll call you back in a second." He reaffirmed before ending the call.

Sherlock waited a few seconds for the call to come through before deciding to turn his phone off. The incessant vibration and blindingly bright light of the screen were clouding his mind.

xXx

John frowned thoughtfully at his phone when, after a few rings, his call went through to Sherlock's voicemail. He tried again, only to be redirected immediately and felt something wet and heavy settled into his stomach. _'Maybe he's out of range,'_ he reasoned with himself, _'that would explain why I couldn't hear him.'_ He paused for a few moments, still eyeing his phone wearily. When his third attempt at ringing the detective's phone was unsuccessful, he felt the weight sliding around uncomfortably in his stomach.

"Damn it!" He exclaimed under his breath, leaping from the couch and throwing his trousers back on, followed quickly by his shoes and coat. He rushed for the door, not bothering to leave a note for Harry and instead decided on ringing her first thing in the morning to explain, though he had no idea what to expect when he got back home to Baker Street.

xXx

Almost an hour later found John on the step outside 221-B, fumbling with frostbitten fingers to get his keys into the lock properly. Harry didn't live that far from Baker Street, but there weren't many taxis around at four in the morning and John had ended up calling a private hire from a company in Kensington, the only number he could remember off the top of his head from those incessant jingles on the radio. After what felt an eternity, he felt the unmistakable click of the door's locking mechanism releasing and pushed inside quickly, being careful not to let the door slam so that he wouldn't alarm Mrs Hudson. The woman put up with more than enough already, in his opinion. He rushed quickly but quietly up the stairs to the flat, his feet barely making any sound on the wooden stairs and reached the door in record time, his heartbeat racing inexplicably.

When he tentatively pushed open the door, his eyes scanned the room frantically, quickly coming to a rest on Sherlock, laying still on the sofa, facing the back cushions, his legs just slightly bent at the knee and his hands clutched so tight into his thick, black curls that his knuckles were turning white.

John stood there, overcome by a flash of horror at the sight of him. He was so still, he hadn't seemed to notice John's arrival and from this angle, the doctor wasn't even sure if he was breathing.

"Sherlock?" He breathed out into the deathly silent room and he visibly sagged with relief when he saw the man in question flinch, his features becoming more taught and angular than usual and his knuckles turning impossibly whiter against his jet black tresses. With his initial panic for Sherlock's safety subsided, John could finally think rationally. He had often seen his flatmate curled up on the couch sulking, but, over their time together, he had become intimately acquainted with the varying levels of moroseness that the younger man could display. The way his hands were gripping onto his hair, the way his face was crunched up in agony, John had seen this only once before. This was one of Sherlock's 'dark moods', when the burden of his own genius became too much for him to bear. It was just one step, one wrong move or poorly-chosen word, from a danger night.

Silently John removed his coat and shoes, knowing that every footstep, even the rustling of the fabric, would be agony for Sherlock's overworked mind. His socked feet led him silently over to the couch and still its inhabitant had not stirred. He reached out and gently laid a hand atop Sherlock's own, still buried against his head, clearly startling him as his whole body flinched at the contact. John pulled Sherlock's now relaxed hand from his hair and placed it at his side, replacing with his own as the detective turned to look at him, his eyes wide and glassy in the dim phosphorous light.

"John?" He croaked uncertainly and the other smiled, a soft, gentle smile that took years off his face and was reserved just for Sherlock. He leant down and kissed Sherlock's temple, feeling, moreso than hearing, the other's shuddering intake of breath. He tapped two fingers against the top of his mop of curls, indicating for him to lift his head, which he did obediently, allowing John to slide into the seat at the edge of the couch. He reached his hand back into Sherlock's hair and pushed his head down gently into his lap, running his fingers through the thick waves and scratching softly against his scalp.

"Why are you here?" Sherlock asked, his deep voice unusually breathy as he heaved a sigh, tension instantly leaking from both his body and mind.

"You rang me, didn't you?" John replied and though his eyes were shut, Sherlock could hear that same smile still present in his voice.

"I didn't mean for you to come. I just wanted to hear your voice. What about Harry?" He babbled all at once, his speech starting to slur ever so slightly.

"Harry'll be fine 'til the morning," John reasoned, bending at an almost impossible angle to plant a chaste kiss against the detective's pliant lips. "You need me more right now." He muttered against the other's mouth before Sherlock claimed his lips again, the kiss languid and lazy.

"Thank you." Sherlock murmured into the fabric of John's jeans as he nuzzled against his lap, those fingers raking across his scalp turning his mind completely,_ gloriously_ blank. _'As always, John, you are the perfect distraction.'_ He though absentmindedly.

"Go to sleep, Sher." John muttered, his tone gentle but stern. And for once, Sherlock did exactly as he was told.

_**A/N:** Whew! I've been writing this non-stop for, like, the past three hours! That's less than a thousand words an hour - no wonder I'm so slow at updating. And I think I have just very effectively given myself RSI. Seriously, my wrist is killing me right now. No more writing for a while. Anyway, thank you so much for reading! I really hope you enjoyed it and please leave me a review to let me know what you thought: Good, bad, what you liked, what I can improve - it's all gold! Thanks again._


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